


7x04: Break the Wheel

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Betrayal, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s05e11 The Dark Year, Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Gen, Mindspaces, Post-Episode: s05e11 The Dark Year, Post-Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Sensate Cluster(s), Temporal Anomaly, The 100 (TV) Season 7 Speculation, The Anomaly - Freeform, mentions of cannibalism, shared memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 09:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22453948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: After being faced with a heartbreaking choice, Octavia reveals the story that brought them to where they are now - her first mission to restore Earth and the devastating truths that it uncovered.16 weeks. 16 episodes. An entire fan-created speculative version of season 7. Each episode will have four chapters, posted once per day from Tuesday to Friday.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Hope Diyoza, Bellamy Blake & Octavia Blake, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Monty Green & Raven Reyes, Octavia Blake & Gaia, Octavia Blake & Hope Diyoza, Octavia Blake & Raven Reyes, Raven Reyes & Jacapo Sinclair
Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595290
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Episode 4! If you've missed them: [Episode 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22162840), [Episode 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22257892) and [Episode 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350007) will be crucial to your understanding of this one, so read them first!
> 
> **Warning:** Chapter 2 will contain some graphic self-harm. Please take care in reading!
> 
> Trigedasleng:
> 
> _Ani_ \- Trigedasleng word for "Aunt", what Hope calls Octavia  
>  _Hofi_ \- Octavia's nickname for Hope ("Hofli" meaning hopefully, "hof" possibly meaning "hope" as a noun/verb, which I've modified to Hofi for the purposes of Hope's name).  
>  _Ai hod yu in, ai Hofi_ \- I love you, my Hope
> 
> The title of this episode is from a line from the show _Game of Thrones_ , episode 5x08 "Hardhome". I haven't watched GoT, but Tumblr tells me that a lot of people who love Octavia likewise love Daenerys, so I feel like using a famous line of hers for an Octavia-centric episode just fits :)

**_RAVEN’S MINDSPACE - ARKADIA MAINTENANCE BAY - EVENING_ **

Raven opened her eyes in her mindspace and was met by darkness, a darkness that seemed familiar, finally making sense when she realized she was on her back.

Reaching a hand up, she turned on the solar lamp, and was met by the Rover’s engine, just inches from her face. Of all of the possibilities for what she’d thought she might encounter in her mindspace, this hadn’t been one of them.

A crash on the lid of the Rover snapped her out of her surprise.

“Reyes!” Yelled a voice. “Get a move on already!”

Raven knew that voice. She pushed herself out from under the Rover as quickly as she could to find Sinclair looking down at her.

“Sinclair!” Raven exclaimed, jumping to her feet and giving him a hug. “I was hoping I’d see you here.”

“I’ll always be with you, Raven. But you know it isn’t as simple as that.”

“I know, Hope said I had to do something important here. But let me just enjoy this moment.”

“Get in the Rover, Raven. Stay in the Rover.”

“What - ?”

Sinclair pulled away from her, and she saw the blood all over his stomach, blood that was staining her shirt too, as he collapsed to the ground, blood dripping from his mouth.

“Get in the Rover. Get in the Rover.” Sinclair moaned. “Stay in the Rover.”

“I’m not losing you again. No no no.” Raven looked around frantically for something to staunch the bleeding, but the maintenance bay was empty of everything except for the two of them and the Rover.

“Stay in the Rover…” Sinclair whispered, his eyes closing. “Please… stay in the Rover…”

“I’m so sorry, Sinclair. I’m so sorry.” Raven sobbed, hearing the faint sound of drums starting up everywhere around her.

“Stay… in… the… Rover…”

Finally following his instructions, Raven scrambled away, pulling herself up and into the Rover, locking the doors as the drums got louder, and torches began to light up all around her.

As she looked out the windshield, another memory came to life as she saw Finn tied to the pole, Clarke with him, stepping away with blood on her hands, blood on the knife that Raven herself had given her, as Finn’s breathing stopped.

“No no no no.” Raven murmured, covering her ears to try and drown out the drums. “No. Not again. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”

Raven closed her eyes, but that didn’t stop her other senses from overwhelming her. The painful sharp whine of the bone marrow extraction drill in Mount Weather. The smell of burning flesh from the Eligius shock collars. The crackling of the radiation shield by Shaw’s grave.

“This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”

_Wait._

Raven opened her eyes and uncovered her ears.

“This isn’t real. That means I’m in charge. I’m in control.”

She couldn’t see anything outside anymore, so she tried the door, but the handles were gone.

The video panel on the Rover’s dashboard flickered to life, and Monty and Harper’s videos started playing.

“… since you’re watching this sometime in the future, you’ll know I didn’t wake you up…”

“… if you’re awake, that means I found it…”

“… be the good guys…”

Raven pushed the control buttons, but they wouldn’t go away, their faces occasionally freezing on the screen, but soon enough they’d start again, continuing on a loop. Expressions sad, but content with the long and peaceful lives that they’d lived.

She started to get frustrated, pounding on the door again, climbing around to try the back door, but nothing was working. Voices started whispering around her, mixing and mingling with the lingering audio from Monty and Harper’s videos, Sinclair’s voice, Finn’s voice, Shaw, her mother, Wick, Abby… the voices were endless.

They grew so loud that she couldn’t think anymore, she couldn’t _think,_ and finally screamed in frustration, collapsing into a corner at the back of the Rover.

“SHUT UP!” Raven yelled. “Shut up, all of you! You’re not here. None of you are really here. You all left me! You were there, and then _you left me.”_

All of the voices stopped except for Monty’s voice on the video.

“We chose this life. He didn’t… We had a good life… I hope your lives there are as happy as mine has been… We chose this life… we chose this life… we chose this life…”

_What is my brain trying to tell me?_

“We chose this life… we chose this life… we chose this life…”

“That’s it.” She whispered.

Raven dove back into the front seat, looking at the video, the short few second loop it was catching on, reminding her of the last time she saw Sinclair, in Becca’s lab right before Praimfaya.

She remembered arguing with Becca and Sinclair, both hallucinations caused by the code in her head. She remembered what she told them.

“I don’t choose pain. I choose life.”

“Now you’re getting it.” Octavia appeared in the passenger seat, making Raven jump.

“Octavia? You’re here? I… I figured it out?”

“Starting to.”

“Are you my mind or are you really here? Hope said that you’d meet us and tell us what’s next.”

“I’m here. But before we get to what I need, let’s finish up with you.”

“I… I was seeing all of the people I’ve lost. How I lost them. Finn. Sinclair. Wick. Shaw. Monty and Harper. But… but they were different. Different from the rest, I mean.”

“Different how?”

“I was so angry at everyone who died and who left me behind, but Monty and Harper… I realized they didn’t leave. They chose their life. They chose to find their happiness. Which then reminded me of what I told myself when I decided to live before Praimfaya. Life is full of all sorts of pain, we can’t control that, but what we can control is how we respond to it. We can choose to be defined by our pain, or we can choose to find a way out of it. That’s something we have to do ourselves, and that isn’t something that we can rely on another person to do for us.”

Octavia nodded. “It took me a long time to see that. Even when I chose to live and stopped trying to die, I was still looking for someone to absolve me of my past. But no one could do that for me. I had to learn to forgive myself, and when I could do that, the way I looked outward into the world changed too. I was already on the mission to restore Earth, but it was only when I had compassion for myself that I realized I could do so much more. And here we are.”

“Here we are. So what’s next?”

“How bad is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know Hope is using blockers, and that she stole a device from me I’d sworn never to use on another person again. I can only assume that means she’s been using it.”

Raven nodded. “She used it on Bellamy and Indra. They’re out for blood. Murphy’s distracting them, while Hope, Jackson and I are locked in the lab. I tried it too. The thing she used on Bellamy and Indra, that is.”

_“What?”_

“I asked Jackson to see his memories. I wanted to understand what happened in the bunker.”

“There are better ways than… wow.” Octavia settled back in her seat. “I always knew you had balls, but that’s next level.”

Raven shrugged. “I wanted to know what you lived through. Now I know. Now I understand why you were all so messed up. I’m sorry, for judging you. I’m sorry for just going along with what your brother said about you. I’m sorry for going along with what Abby blamed on you.”

“It’s in the past.” Octavia said quietly. “There are much more pressing matters right now. Like Hope.”

“She reminds me a lot of someone I know.” Raven elbowed Octavia in the side playfully, but Octavia wasn’t having the joke, rubbing her hands over her face with a sigh.

“I know. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Hey, that’s not a bad thing. If there’s anyone who has the balls to match mine, it’s you.”

“We’re a world beyond that now.” Octavia said. “I’m not in the business of fighting anymore. I’m in the business of peace. Empathy. Compassion. Connection. Hope attacking my brother and Indra, that flies in the face of all of that, and how are we supposed to get them on board if this is their first impression?”

“You’re saying Bellamy and Indra don’t deserve to experience those painful memories? Even after everything they did?”

“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it. This is about doing better, and that means stopping the cycle of an eye for an eye. I thought I taught Hope that, I tried, but I guess I wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped.”

“Or maybe she does know, but she just loves you so much that she doesn’t care. Love brings out the best in us and the worst in us. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of for the people we love, even if they’d be horrified by it.”

“That’s definitely true. But that doesn’t make what has to happen next any easier.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Call on me when all three of you are awake. Make sure Hope’s off the blockers. I’ll do the rest.”

**_SANCTUM - LAB - MORNING_ **

When Raven came to, Jackson was already up and about, mixing together some sort of concoction over a small burner and decanting it into a syringe when it had sufficiently cooled. Hope was still asleep in a corner by the door. Asleep, she looked much younger than her twenty years, young and vulnerable and Raven wondered what kind of an upbringing she had there on the other side. Raised by Diyoza and Octavia in a world that was ostensibly peaceful, but with a hidden cruelty that Octavia had dedicated the past fifteen years to blowing wide open.

As she waited for Hope to wake up, Raven had her first unfamiliar visitor - a young woman who introduced herself as Inanna, a friend of both Octavia and Hope from the planet called Ki. Raven didn’t miss the look Inanna cast at Hope, a sadness in her eyes that seemed to overwhelm a deeper fondness she harboured for the sleeping girl.

“She has a hard road ahead of her.” Inanna said. “But a necessary one to save your people.”

Raven nodded, remembering what Octavia had told her.

“Best not delay.” Inanna leaned over and kissed Hope’s cheek, disappearing as Hope’s eyes snapped open, leaving her disoriented in her sudden wakefulness.

Hope saw Raven sitting further off, looking at her, and her hands flew to one of her pockets.

“If you’re going for the blockers, think again.” Raven said. “Octavia wants to talk.”

Hope moved her hands away from the pocket, averting her eyes. “She’s mad, isn’t she?”

“She is.”

Hope nodded. “That’s fair. Can we go somewhere more private so that the people outside are less likely to hear?”

Raven stood up and opened a side door that led to a different room, heavily insulated from the rest of the space. By the chains on the wall, Raven guessed this was where the Primes had kept their unwilling hosts until it was time for a Prime’s ‘resurrection’.

Hope and Jackson joined her, and she closed the door behind them. Taking some deep breaths, Raven focused on reaching out to Octavia, finding her mind, and soon enough all three of them could see her, standing in front of Hope, expression serious.

“I’m sorry, _ani.”_ Hope whispered. “I’m sorry, but they had to pay.”

“What have I been teaching you? We’re teaching peace, empathy, love - and everything you’re doing has been the opposite of that. I don’t need Bellamy and the others being against what I bring them because of what you have done. I raised you better than that.”

“I know.” Hope whispered. “But I just… every time I look at Bellamy, I only see those nights of your nightmares. Because they are my nightmares too, _ani._ I don’t want you to be in pain and I can’t stand the fact that they don’t know how much pain they caused.”

“They would understand in time. As they connect with us, as they join with us, then they would understand. They would see. They would know it then.”

“They don’t deserve that gift.” Hope said stubbornly. “They don’t deserve to feel your grace.”

_“Hofi,_ I’m not a god.” Octavia pleaded. “I don’t give people grace. I give people a choice. The opportunity for empathy and love. The opportunity to connect with the universe. A new chance at a world that may have cast them out.”

“You don’t age. You don’t bleed. Is that not the mark of a god?”

“You know that I bleed, _Hofi._ Don’t say that I don’t. You understand the science of why I am what I am. I’m not divine.”

“Maybe not by the standards of some old book, maybe not because you weren’t here in this universe at the point of its inception, but hasn’t everything you’ve done given you the power of a god nonetheless? You give people hope when they have none. Like that story that Bellamy told you, back when he still loved you. Prometheus. You stole fire from the gods and gave it back to the human race.”

“That doesn’t make me a god.” Octavia said. “I’ve given us a power that generations past couldn’t ever conceive of, but that doesn’t make me a god.”

“Then what does it make you, _ani?_ Our saviour? Like Terra’s Jesus on the Cross? You suffered for years to bring us our salvation.”

“I created this technology, this ability to feel across the universe, the ability to empathize across worlds, so that no one would ever have to suffer as I did. So no one would ever have to feel the pain that I’ve felt.”

“Pain that was caused because people didn’t understand you!” Hope yelled. “Because people didn’t trust you. Because people didn’t believe in you. Because they didn’t even want to consider that you knew better than they did. Why should they be granted a peace that they denied you?”

“To stop the cycle. To stop the cycle that has repeated for centuries, for millennia, all across the universe. To stop the cycle that Omphalos has had the ability to stop for those same millennia, but they chose not to, over and over again. I’m breaking that cycle. Breaking that cycle to give everyone the opportunity to live free and in peace. Breaking the cycle means giving people the consideration that they haven’t given you, because someone has to take the first step towards reconciliation.”

“And what is that if not grace?” Hope asked.

Octavia sighed. “You’re strong and you’re stubborn and you’re relentless and… what else could you be? Your mother and I raised you. Just like Bellamy raised me. Now I have to do what Bellamy was never able to do until it was already too late. I have to let go. Let go and let you make your own choices. Bellamy only let go of me at a time when I desperately needed him back in my life rather than out of it. I won’t make that same mistake.”

“What are you saying, _ani?”_

Octavia’s expression was stern but compassionate. “I’m letting you go to solve this on your own. You believe people have to earn my grace to be able to take this gift of empathy tech? Then go. Make your judgment about when if ever Bellamy is ready for it. If he’s earned it. But you’re going to have to earn it back too. You betrayed me, _Hofi._ You stole from me something you knew I’d sworn never to use on another human being again, and you used it on _my_ brother and _my seda.”_

Others began to appear in the room behind Octavia, Inanna at her right hand, other dear friends from near and far across the universe, as Hope began to realize why they were all there and her expression turned to horror.

“Your hubris puts us all at risk, _habibti.”_ Inanna whispered, taking Hope’s hand and pressing a kiss to it. “I tried to warn you. But I agree with Octavia. You’re feeding your fire with vengeance, not with righteousness. You know that is not our way.”

Hope heard a noise behind her and looked over to the door, where Jackson was standing with his arms crossed, revealing the syringe in his hand.

“No. No. Please don’t.” Hope begged, putting Raven between herself and Jackson. “Don’t let him give me that. Please.”

“I don’t want to.” Octavia said, eyes glassy with unshed tears. “I’d rather you make the right choice yourself. You know what that choice is.”

Hope looked heartbroken, but she bit her lip and nodded.

Octavia ran her hand over Hope’s cheek with a tender touch and kissed her brow. “I love you so much, _Hofi._ But now it is your turn to learn about forgiveness and redemption. You’ve seen what I’ve been doing for decades to make up for all of the pain I caused the world. Now it is your turn to set things right.”

_“Ani,_ I…”

“I’ll be here when it is over. I promise I will be, to bring you back in. Just remember everything I taught you. And do better. _Ai hod yu in, ai Hofi._ Now go, make me proud.”

Octavia stepped back, watching as Hope clasped her hands over her heart and closed her eyes, uttering a phrase they all wished never had to be used.

_Ego sola._ I am alone.

Hope collapsed to her knees with a soft cry. Raven and Jackson both felt a momentary shock through their bodies, like a mild electrical current, and then it was gone as quick as it came.

Hope looked up to where Raven could still see Octavia, tears streaming down her face as she clutched Niylah’s hand, but from her expression, Raven knew Hope couldn’t see her anymore.

Hope’s shoulders shook with sobs and Raven stepped up to rest a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Raven whispered.

“No. I am.” Hope swiped her hands across her cheeks, struggling to get her emotions under control as she got to her feet. _“Ani_ is right. I can do this. I can. I can make her proud of me again.”

“I think she always has been.”

Hope smiled, a little smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I hope so.”

“She loves you so much, and she knows that you’re not really alone, even if you’re not connected. Jackson and I are here for you. Murphy is here for you. We’ll help you, okay?”

“Thank you, Raven.”

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - MORNING_ **

Octavia was somber as she returned to her lab in Omphalos in both mind and body, wiping away her tears as she tried to focus on what had to come next.

“She’ll be all right.” Niylah said, guiding Octavia to a seat and sitting down beside her, resting her head on Octavia’s shoulder. “She’s strong and she has people looking out for her.”

“Then why does it still feel like I betrayed her?”

“You’re remembering a different time and different circumstances.” Ash said, sitting down across from them and reaching her hand out to take Octavia’s. “But I was there on that day too. Bellamy did betray you, by casting you out like he did. You were in pain, drowning in it, and you needed his help. Believe me, I know what that feels like. But he didn’t know how to give it and thought abandoning you to die alone would be easier than trying to help you. He exiled you to help himself, not to help you. You let Hope go so she could learn, and so he can too.”

“They both have a second chance to right their wrongs now. She can make amends for what she did, and he can help her the way he didn’t help you.” Niylah added. “You’ve put your trust in her to do your work without you looking over her shoulder, and that’s the opposite of betrayal. That’s faith.”

“You’re right.” Octavia said. “Thank you.”

“You all finished with your ‘visiting’?” Miller asked, as he and Gaia came into the room, Madi trailing behind them.

“For now.” Octavia said. “Jackson has joined us. If you want to talk to him, you can.”

“Through you though. Not exactly a private conversation.”

“It wouldn’t be private, no. But you could join us and then you can talk to him yourself.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

Octavia turned to Gaia. “And you?”

“Madi’s starting to convince me. But there was one part of your story that you skipped.”

“What do you mean?”

“You told us the story of how you’ve been restoring Earth. You told us the story of how you developed this empathy technology, and Madi believes it is the culmination of everything Bekka Pramheda was trying to do. But why did you do it? We lived together in that bunker for six years and while you certainly wanted to bring our people back to the ground, to a healthy and whole Earth, and thus I believe you would work on a mission to restore it now, you never had any interest in technology like this. So why this? Why now? How did it start?”

“All right, if that’s what you need.” Octavia agreed. “I should warn you though, that story is… it is a story that will shock you all. Especially you, Gaia.”

“Why me?”

“Because everything in this universe is connected, and it brings us back to a secret that we’ve kept for years.” Octavia said. “You’ll want to be sitting down for this, because this is the story that upends everything we’ve ever known to be true.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** This chapter contains graphic self-harm. Please take care of yourself and reach out for help if these issues affect you. You don't have to be alone.

**_FIFTEEN YEARS AGO BY OMPHALOS TIME  
OMPHALOS - BIODIVERSITY LAB - DAY_ **

Five years after passing through the Anomaly into Omphalos, Octavia was working at the biodiversity lab, an assistant to the leader of the Terra mission. She was a part of the team researching reforestation and the effect of radioactivity on the plants of Omphalos that would be needed to bring green life back to Terra - as the Omphalans called Octavia’s Earth.

“It’s time.” Dr Marcos said, coming up to Octavia’s workstation. “Tomorrow is our first mission to Terra. Are you ready to go home, Octavia?”

“I hope so.” Octavia said, putting down the petri dish she was looking at. “We’re not going to stay, are we?”

“No. We’ll stay for a week, introduce the first species in the land surrounding the entry point, and then come back. Check in regularly over the coming months, to see if they’re growing and spreading, and then move on to phase two.”

“And how does this _time_ work? Because right now barely any time at all has still passed between here and Gaia.”

“Yes, yes. I know you’re worried about your people. Not to worry. You’ll learn how the coordinates and the keystones work in time. But as we go, we’ll tether Terra to this timeline, meaning that time there will move as it does here. That is to say, barely anything.”

Octavia nodded. “Okay. Do I need to pack anything?”

“Just your clothes. We’ll have ration packs and all the equipment ready to go by the keystone room in the morning. The security desk can give you the address as you leave today. Nine o’clock. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t, ma’am. Thank you. This is what I’ve been waiting for for years.”

Dr Marcos smiled. “I know how important it is for you. Hopefully this will help you. To see that we’re making a difference in the universe, that we’re making a difference to your world and bringing it back to life.”

“And that one day I’ll be able to take my people home.”

“And that.”

* * *

At eight forty five the next morning, Octavia made her way to the address that Dr Marcos had given her. The most important place in Omphalos, the keystone room. The mysterious keystones, that she’d heard about but never seen, were the key to the Omphalans’ travel between worlds. In the science fiction books she’d read on the Ark, these were often called wormholes, passages through space and time that connected far-distant parts of the universe. But the Omphalans activated and deactivated the passage between worlds with keystones, something that held special significance to their system of work, and once she saw them, she’d be able to unlock the secret of travel across the worlds herself.

Octavia was excited, to be sure, but also a bit wary - after all, she didn’t need to know how to get to all of the worlds. Just her own. Her own world was the only one she cared about. Only her world would bring her people home.

She passed through security, and was escorted down to the lower levels of the facility by a number of guards.

Their team of twenty was assembling, Dr Marcos coordinating, and it seemed like Octavia was the last to arrive. Everyone else was suited up in anti-radiation gear, since their systems were much more sensitive to radiation than hers was, but she didn’t have to worry about it.

“Dr Blake, you’re here, good.” Dr Marcos said. “That’s everyone. Ready?”

(It seemed so strange to Octavia to be referred to as _Dr Blake_ , she was still just an apprentice, she felt, but she’d had the title officially conferred on her several months earlier.)

“Ready to go.”

“We each need to clip into our assigned places, to our pallets of gear, so that they come over with us. There are wheels for more easy maneuvering, but we’ll be arriving in a tight spot, so when you’re across, move fast so the next person can go.”

Octavia walked over to the pallet that Dr Marcos indicated, clipping the carabiners to her belt, and turning in the direction that Dr Marcos showed her. Dr Marcos clipped into her own pallet and pressed a number of strange keys on the screen next to her, watching as the light flashed green.

“Ready for transport.” Dr Marcos said. “Keystone is active.” She pointed to an empty space beyond her on the floor that was glowing green. “Once you step past that, you’ll be taken to Terra. Dr Blake, it is your planet. Do you want to have the first honours?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Octavia put her hands on the ropes behind her, and pulled her pallet towards the spot on the floor, determined to do this, determined to make her way back to her own world.

She closed her eyes and stepped over the line, she felt the air around her tremble, and she kept moving, feeling resistance behind her as the portal gripped onto her gear pallet, moving until the resistance was gone, and she opened her eyes.

She’d expected a homecoming like that day she’d first set foot on Earth - not this.

It was dark. She felt the air vibrating around her, the keystone, she knew, and as her eyes adjusted and she began to see the dark walls around her, she already knew before she turned what the keystone would look like.

For she’d seen it before, but had not known what it was.

She was back in the bunker.

**_136 YEARS AGO BY OCTAVIA’S TIMELINE  
SECOND DAWN BUNKER - OCTAVIA’S OFFICE - DAY_ **

Octavia returned to her office after yet another fight in the pit, two more dead, and they’d only been in the bunker for six months. At this rate, would any of them survive?

She was distracted by her thoughts as she closed the door behind her, not noticing that she wasn’t alone until she heard the mechanical crash.

Octavia looked up sharply, and saw Gaia kneeling behind her desk, guilty look on her face as she stood up, the disk of the Second Dawn logo in her hands, instead of on the wall where it was supposed to be.

“What the hell are you doing here, Gaia?” Octavia asked.

“I’m sorry, _Osleya.”_ Gaia whispered. “I was just… I was looking for answers.”

“What kind of answers?”

“This is supposed to be the crypt of Bekka Pramheda.” Gaia said, putting the disk on the desk. “That’s what we were taught. But I’ve searched the entire bunker from top to bottom the past few months, looking for a reliquary, a devotional niche, anything - and there’s been nothing. The last option is here, in this office, since this was previously the office of he who was the leader of the Second Dawn cult.”

“You think he had something to do with Bekka Pramheda?” Octavia asked.

“He’s the one who had her killed.” Gaia snapped.

“Then why do you think he’d have some sort of memorial to her in here?” Octavia questioned. “If he hated her enough to kill her, why would he memorialize her?”

“Because legend has it that he was so overcome with regret for what he did that he sealed himself into the crypt with her.”

“So you think both of them, both of their bodies at any rate, should be here?”

“Yes.” Gaia indicated the wall behind the disk, where instead of just a plain wall there was some sort of strange and elaborate switch set into it. “This could be what takes us there. A place unmarked on the plans of the bunker, since it may have been created after the plans were drawn. Or, alternately, a place that was supposed to be hidden the whole time, a hidden part of the bunker that the common people were never supposed to find.”

“Gaia, this sounds crazy.”

“Yet this switch is here.” Gaia rested her hand on it. “Come investigate this with me, _Osleya._ The spirits of the Commanders could still be with us. Could be with you. This could help you find our way back to the ground.”

That thought did weigh heavily on Octavia’s mind on a daily basis. They could survive for five years, but then what? What would they have after that? Would they die there, or was there, impossibly, another way out? A chance for them to survive?

So she was curious. She did want to see.

“Okay.” Octavia said. “Pull it. Let’s see what there is.”

Gaia pulled the switch, and the bookshelf against the far wall began to move, shifting out of position to reveal a passageway behind it. She gave Octavia a knowing look. “Let’s go.”

Octavia grabbed a torch from the wall, and followed Gaia down the passageway, following it as it wound down, down, down, perhaps down even further than the bottom level of the bunker. It only occurred to her now that perhaps they should have posted guards, but it was too late to go back now.

They entered a chamber, completely rounded, with no other visible exits.

But with a giant sphere hovering in the middle of the room. Hovering with no sign of anything holding it up, no movement, no sound - nothing. 

“Incredible.” Gaia said, walking up to it, not making contact, though her hand hovered mere inches away, mere inches away from some of the symbols that were carved onto its surface.

“Does this look like a reliquary to Bekka Pramheda to you?” Octavia asked.

“No. But it does look like the source of some of our sacred symbols. They must be connected somehow. Bekka must be here somewhere. Come, help me look.”

Octavia and Gaia pored over the walls for hours, looking for any other switch or indication that there was some other hidden space, but there was nothing, just the sphere, and as their chances with the walls grew dimmer, their attention focused back onto it.

“What could this mean?” Gaia asked. “There are so many symbols here, this has to mean something.”

“Your Flamekeeper teachings say nothing about it?”

“No. And look - it is pristine. It exists within this chamber, but it looks like the chamber was built _around_ it. This sphere predates the chamber.”

“Which means it predates the Second Dawn cult.”

Gaia nodded. “This must have existed before the bombs that ended the world a hundred years ago. But it isn’t mentioned in any of the stories that you read as a child?”

“No. But the world was big and vast, and this was just one corner of it. There weren’t many stories about here, besides the politics not far away. Nothing about a sphere like this.”

Gaia circled around it more times than Octavia could count, and it was almost making her dizzy just watching. She didn’t know what it meant, what it could mean, but she did know one thing - it wasn’t something that showed any signs of helping her save her people.

“Gaia.” Octavia called out. “I… I’m going back upstairs. You’re welcome to stay, try and figure out what it means, return here another day if you must. But tell no one about it until we’ve been able to understand it.”

“Yes, _Osleya.”_ Gaia nodded. “It wouldn’t be wise to bring others here. It isn’t for them to know until it is understood.”

**_FIFTEEN YEARS AGO BY OMPHALOS TIME  
EARTH (TERRA) - KEYSTONE CHAMBER - DAY_ **

Despite fighting her pain and darkness for five years, being in the space that brought it all back had the pain washing over her in waves. Remembering her mission, Octavia staggered forward, dragging herself and her pallet up the tunnel that she knew well, but that she _couldn’t_ let them know that she knew, but they’d know that this was the bunker that was her home, wouldn’t they? But if this place was hidden, then maybe they didn’t have to know that she had seen the keystone before. They didn’t need to know that she’d ever looked beyond the bookcase.

Octavia heard the others coming through, following her through the tunnel and up, up, up… up to her office. She took a few deep breaths as she reached the door, and prepared to reach for the hidden switch to open it from this side when she stopped herself, realizing that that would tip her hand that she knew of this place, that she knew the way out.

And so she waited, resting back against the wall trying to calm herself, grateful for the fact that her pallet of equipment was taller than she was, shielding her from view, shielding the fact that she was shaking with fear and panic. She dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to use the pain to center herself, especially as she heard some faster steps coming up around the pallets, knowing it would be Dr Marcos to direct them further.

Though to her surprise, the person who came around her pallet wasn’t Dr Marcos, but Dr Warner. Octavia hadn’t recognized her in the team, as she’d already been dressed in an anti-radiation suit when she’d arrived.

“Dr Warner.” Octavia said, trying to relax. “I didn’t know you were going to be on this mission.”

“I’m a medical doctor, not a scientist, so I wouldn’t usually come on a mission like this, but Dr Marcos asked me to come along for you.”

“For me?” Octavia kept her voice steady, years of practice made it almost second nature.

“When we open this door… it might come as a shock to you. It might bring up some bad memories. But know that I am here for you. Know that I am here if you want to talk about anything or anyone.”

“What’s on the other side of that door?” Octavia asked, letting apprehension into her voice.

Dr Warner reached past her for the switch, and the bookcase slid aside to reveal what had once been Octavia’s office, and more recently her throne room.

And everything was still there. With a heavy layer of dust and ash, but her throne still stood where it had been. The broken mirror in the corner, one of many broken mirrors in the bunker. One of many that _she’d_ broken because she couldn’t stand to look at what she’d become.

“Do you know where we are?” Octavia asked, voice disappearing into a whisper.

“I imagine this was your throne room, in what was Wonkru’s bunker, and that was built by the Second Dawn Cult a century before that.”

“You knew we would be coming through here.”

“I knew. Would you have rather known ahead of time?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“That’s fair. But we’re here now. And you still have a mission. Right?”

Octavia nodded. “I guess we should get all of this junk out of the way so we can get through. I hope you’ve got some ropes and pulleys so we can pull all of our gear up the stairs and out the only exit we’ve got.”

“We’ll make it work.”

Octavia unclipped herself from her gear pallet and moved into the room, shoving everything she could to the far side of the room to let them through, lifting and hurling her throne so hard that it crashed into what was left of the mirror, shattering the remaining shards from the frame such that they scattered across the floor.

It was only when she felt Dr Warner gripping her shoulders, yelling what should have been a whisper but encumbered by the radiation suit, that Octavia realized that she’d stopped breathing and starting panicking, memories pressing in on her as she worried what would happen when she ventured further from this room. Knowing that just on the other side of that metal door was the pit, the pit where she’d almost watched her brother die, the pit where so many had died, and beyond it… death and destruction permeated every inch of this place, and she needed _out._

“Octavia!” Dr Warner yelled. “Breathe with me. Just breathe. One two three in, one two three out. One two three in, one two three out. That’s it. That’s it. Now come with me. Let the others move the gear, and we’ll get you aboveground, okay?”

Octavia nodded wordlessly, letting Dr Warner guide her out of the room and towards the stairs, Octavia kept her eyes closed, not wanting to see the pit, not wanting to think about it, not wanting to think about how somehow she was back _here,_ and would she ever be free? Or was she chained here forever, unable to return to a green world of plenty? Had the last five years been a lie, and now they were going to leave her here on a desolate planet?

“Step.” Came Dr Warner’s muffled voice.

“Hmm?” Octavia asked, confused.

“There’s a step here.” Dr Warner repeated. “Open your eyes, Octavia. We’re in the outer chamber now. You’re okay.”

Octavia opened her eyes slowly, relieved to see that Dr Warner was telling the truth, and that they were by the stairs that would lead up and out the exit that they’d built after the prisoners had broken through the roof. Dr Warner had left the door to the bunker open a crack, enough so the others would be able to get through, but was blocking her view through it with her own body.

“Head on up.” Dr Warner said. “I’ll be right here.”

Octavia went up the stairs, emerging from the same exit as she had many times before, into familiar streets, streets where it seemed that nothing had changed in a hundred and thirty years. Everything was still as brown and grey and desolate as it had been when they’d first emerged from the bunker, and Octavia’s hopes of a simple return to life on Earth had been dashed.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Dr Warner said, coming up beside her. “But this is the last time you emerge from this hole and see it like this. Today is when we begin to change that.”

“I know.”

“Good. Then let’s get it done.”

Over the next few hours, Octavia and Dr Warner manned the topside jobs, hauling all of their gear up and out of the bunker, with the group setting up camp some distance away, where they all followed Octavia’s lead to an unfamiliar part of Polis, right on the edge of the wasteland, but still faced in the direction they’d gone to Shallow Valley.

As night fell, Octavia found her way onto the roof of one of the dilapidated buildings, staring out into the wasteland, as Dr Warner climbed up beside her.

“Facing your past is an important way through it.” Dr Warner said. “Sometimes that can mean the physical reminders of it as well. You have an opportunity that many of your people don’t. When they come back, this place will look very different.”

“So much pain happened here.”

“I know. But from it, good will grow. What’s that phrase that you had? In Trigedasleng?”

_“Kom graun, oso na groun op. Kom folau, oso na gyon op._ From the earth we will grow. From the ashes we will rise.”

“Exactly. Spending this time with the ashes of your past will help you rise from them in a way you weren’t able to while you were still here.”

“I thought I’d gotten over the pain. Or started to, at least. It had begun to feel so distant. But being back here… it’s like the past five years never existed. It is like I’m back here, without a way out.”

“There is a way. You know that.”

“What if it breaks? What if we can’t get back?”

“We will. This tech hasn’t failed Omphalos in millennia. We know how to use it.”

“Doesn’t it ever break?”

“Not irreparably. Don’t worry. We will go back to Omphalos in a week. You should get some sleep, so that we can get to work early tomorrow morning.”

Dr Warner squeezed Octavia’s shoulder, and climbed off the roof, leaving Octavia alone.

Octavia looked down from the roof, watching as Dr Warner went to join the rest of the group in the isolation tent where they could remove their anti-radiation suits. She saw through the plastic windows as they laughed and joked with each other over the size of their ration packs, much more basic food than they were used to in Omphalos.

She felt angry, seeing these people joking about having to eat smaller meals, people who had always had plenty, people who hadn’t known what it was like to have scant rations for practically their entire lives, or spent years living on one half-meal a day that was for a year made up primarily of human flesh. They’d never had to eat their own people.

Despite her hopes, Octavia knew she’d healed very little in the past five years. The nightmares were still there. Today the nightmare was made real all around her. Her hand went automatically to her belt, which as a fieldwork belt, had an all-purpose knife attached to it.

Diyoza would be mad at her, she knew, since she was conscious and aware of her actions. But Diyoza wasn’t here. She couldn’t scare Hope, it was just her and a rooftop on Earth where she could feel the ghosts of her past crowding in around her.

Octavia flipped the knife open and pulled it almost automatically across her arm, watching in frustration as the pain bloomed and then disappeared almost just as quickly, her rapid healing making it as if nothing had happened, just a slight trickle of blood on her arm from what had escaped from her veins in those brief seconds that she’d succeeded in hurting herself.

Looking around herself, Octavia found a shard of glass from a broken window, and she stabbed it into her arm, not removing it, relishing in the feeling of pain that came over her, blood seeping around the edges but not spurting as it could, since the glass was still embedded there. As soon as she removed it, Octavia knew that her arm would heal _again_ and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. Nothing she could to to keep wearing her pain on her skin.

Or perhaps… Octavia grabbed a handful of gritty sand, pulling out the glass with it in her hand, feeling at least some of the grains of sand dripping into her arm before it healed up. Her skin healed over, but she could feel the grit beneath her skin, feel it rubbing, feel it hurting and she lay back on the roof, ecstatic that something let her feel the way she’d been feeling for years trapped beneath the ground.

It definitely wasn’t healing, but she didn’t care about that in this moment. She just wanted pain. This was a moment when she didn’t want to heal.

_“Okteivia.”_ Whispered a voice inside her head. _“Okteivia.”_

Octavia sat up, looking all around her, but no one was there. It wasn’t one of their voices anyway, Octavia knew all of the team members she was there with. This was an old voice, one from this world, with the lilt of Trigedasleng in the way it said her name.

_“Okteivia.”_ This time the voice whispered in her ear, the breeze of a hand on her shoulder at the same time.

Octavia looked around herself wildly, looking for an answer to the voice she was hearing. But there was only one answer, and it was impossible.

“Lincoln?”

_“Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim.”_

“We can’t.” Octavia sobbed, scratching at her arm, the sand suddenly itching instead of hurting. “You’re gone, years and centuries ago. And now I’ll - I - I can never be with you. Because I’m here. Permanently. I - I’m something _else_ now, I’m barely even human.”

_“Ai hod yu in, Okteivia. Otaim.”_

“Even after everything I’ve done?”

_“Otaim._ Remember me after I’m dead. Remember me…”

The whispers faded into the darkness, and there was nothing, nothing except for the sounds of her team far below in their tent. Octavia lay back on the roof again, trying to contain her sobs, she didn’t want Dr Warner or any of the others coming up there again, didn’t want them to see her like this when she’d (mostly) been able to hold it together.

She bolted upright. _Remember me._

Now she understood.

Octavia climbed down from the roof carefully, on the opposite side of the building from where the team was. She walked through the shadows back towards the bunker, back towards her pit of nightmares, because there was something that she needed to find there.

Something she had a second chance to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng:
> 
> _Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim_ \- May we meet again  
>  _Ai hod yu in, Okteivia. Otaim._ \- I love you, Octavia. Always.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng:
> 
> _Gyon op, Blodreina_ \- Rise, Blodreina

**_FIFTEEN YEARS AGO BY OMPHALOS TIME  
EARTH (TERRA) - POLIS - DAWN_ **

Octavia hovered by the entrance to the bunker for hours, the sun beginning to rise, knowing that her team would be waking soon and that someone would come looking for her, but she needed to do this before she lost her nerve.

She closed her eyes and breathed deep. “I am not afraid.” She whispered to herself, and plunged inside.

Octavia walked the walkway of the rotunda, heading down down down until she reached the exit into the main part of the bunker, moving through the hallways until she came to her room.

It had been over a century now, since she’d been here. She’d been the last to clear the bunker, making sure all of her people were out before she’d headed off herself. Everything should have been exactly where she’d left it.

Including the book.

But something was wrong.

Octavia knew immediately upon entering her room that things were out of place. That things had been moved around. It was not as she’d left it. Many parts of the room were heavy with the accumulated dust and ash of over a century, but other parts of the room were covered with a lighter layer of dust, and no ash at all.

Someone had been here. And it could have only been someone from Omphalos.

Someone had come here, looking for information about her, looking for her history, looking for information she hadn’t told them? She didn’t know. She thought she’d told them just about everything. But still they had come.

When Octavia had left the bunker - with the intent to return at some point when Shallow Valley was conquered, to gather things she hadn’t wanted to carry across the desert, such as books - she’d hidden Lincoln’s book in a special compartment behind her bed. No one, not even Niylah or Indra, had known about it. It was her special place, unknown to anyone.

Yet, somehow, there was a path of light dust and no ash that cut straight through from the door to that side of her bed, with minimal disturbance all around. Like the people coming to her room had known where to go.

How could they have _known?_

Octavia stood frozen in the middle of the room, a sick feeling beginning to overcome her, but she got a grip on herself and walked the last paces to the bed, reaching into the compartment, and pulling out Lincoln’s book. At least it was there. She had it. Even if now she knew that they’d been _lying_ to her about so much.

Octavia tucked the book into one of the large pockets of her work belt, glad to see that it fit and could be hidden without any questions. But now she was the one with questions.

Questions that she wouldn’t ask. Because she already knew what the answers would be.

They’d been watching her the entire time. They’d been watching all of them. They’d been watching the sphere most of all.

They’d watched them suffer and die when they could have saved them.

**_134 YEARS AGO BY OCTAVIA’S TIMELINE  
SECOND DAWN BUNKER - KEYSTONE CHAMBER - DAY_ **

As soon as Abby left the office, after telling Octavia what had to be done to save their people, after telling her what _she’d_ have to do to save her people, Octavia ripped the Second Dawn seal off the wall and opened the bookshelf door that led down to the mysterious sphere. She threw the seal back over the switch and slipped inside, closing the door behind her.

Heedless of how dangerous it could possibly be - sometimes the passage got slippery, water was seeping in from somewhere, possibly that aquifer, she didn’t know - Octavia ran. She ran down the passage, as fast as she could, as far as she could, lungs burning as she ran to look for her last hope.

She clattered into the sphere room, her movement startling Gaia, who was meditating in front of the sphere.

_“Osleya.”_ Gaia said. “I didn’t expect to see you down here.”

“Please tell me you’ve got a solution.” Octavia begged. “Please.”

Gaia looked grave, getting to her feet. “I wish I could. I’ve been praying for days, but there has been no answer. Nothing. The Commanders truly have abandoned us.”

Since the news of the soybean fungus had come, they had both spent hours down by the sphere, hoping for some sort of miracle. Octavia knew the sphere had to hold some sort of answers, some sort of hope, but she didn’t know what it could be. Gaia prayed, Octavia hovered, never having been one for prayer, but out of options, she had started to pray too, to any deity she’d ever read about, ears sharp.

There had been days, when standing quiet in the cavern of the sphere room, that Octavia could hear faint clicks and buzzing. But she’d never found the source of them. Gaia paid them no mind, convinced they were hearing things, wanting to hear things, but that there was nothing.

“Gaia, please.” Octavia said, tears coming to her eyes. “What I’m going to have to do tomorrow - I -”

_“Osleya.”_ Gaia whispered, grabbing Octavia’s elbows. “You need to be strong. You need to be strong for your people.”

“What Abby just asked me to do - Gaia, you haven’t been up there the past few days.”

“Then tell me.”

“People… they don’t want to eat.”

“They will when they’re hungry enough. Or they’ll die. Simple as that.”

“It isn’t.” Octavia shook her head, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Abby said it can’t be that simple. That if people starve, they won’t be enough to feed us. And the people who do eat, they’ll feel an inescapable guilt crushing down on them. They won’t survive either. They’ll destroy themselves. I… I can’t let that happen.”

Gaia nodded. “You have to take away the choice.”

“How can I?”

“For your people.” Gaia said softly. “You understand what it means to be the leader. As Commanders before you have done, you have to do what you must for your people.”

“I’m not a Commander, Gaia.” Octavia wept. “I don’t have the Flame. I don’t have anything.”

“You have yourself.” Gaia said, resting her hand over Octavia’s heart. “And you have this. You have the strength to do what you must for your people.”

“But what about me?”

Gaia’s eyes looked sad. “That’s the price of being a leader. You give all of yourself to your people.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“No leader ever does.”

* * *

The next day, after a sleepless night and day and all of the horror that had happened in the cafeteria, all of the horror she’d been responsible for to force them to live, Octavia staggered down the passageway, collapsing in the sphere room, sobbing in front of it.

Gaia, who had been asleep in the corner, having practically taken up residence there, started awake at the noise, and came over to her.

“How bad was it?” Gaia asked, a note of concern in her voice, but not the type of concern that Octavia had been hoping for.

“Three of our people are dead. I shot them.” Octavia said, voice hollow. “I shot them to get the others to eat.”

_“Osleya,_ you saved the lives and souls of a thousand of our people today.” Gaia said kindly. “That matters.”

“Don’t call me that anymore.” Octavia said. “I don’t feel like a champion. I don’t feel like I saved anything or anyone.”

“Then we must come up with a new title. The people must have a title to call you. You cannot just be Octavia.”

“Why not?” Octavia asked plaintively. “Then they’d see that I’m not a champion. I’m not a saviour. I’m just a girl.”

Gaia grabbed Octavia by the shoulders and shook her. “Because you cannot just be a girl. To rule our people, you have to show them strength. You have to show them power. You have to show them mercilessness.”

“I don’t feel strong or powerful.”

“You have to be. If you’re not, then this all falls apart. You remember what happened when Skaikru stole the farm. You remember the chaos. But when you showed strength, when you showed them your power, you took that control back. You brought our people back into line, back into Wonkru. You’ve kept them together for two years, but if you don’t keep that strength and that control, then rebellion will start again. You can’t let that happen, because then we will all die. You are all that stands between us and oblivion.”

“What about this?” Octavia asked, staring up at the sphere. “This exists, somehow, some way, but we have no idea of its meaning. We have no idea of its purpose. But it must have one. Maybe if we show it to more people, they’ll have an idea as to what it is. What it means.”

“No.” Gaia emphasized. “We can’t. If too many know about this, they’ll try to destroy it. Or worse, hoping for some sort of miracle that cannot come from such wanton violence.”

“What miracle have you had here the past week?” Octavia asked. “You haven’t had one.”

“The Commanders are testing your strength.” Gaia said. “They’re testing you. You can’t give up. You have to show you’re worthy of their protection. Worthy of their guidance.”

“Gaia, the Commanders are in the Flame. My blood is red and it always will be. There is no way for me to access their knowledge. They can’t protect me, because they are in there, not out here. Anything out here, that is up to me. I have to do it. They’re locked away in that chip and I have to do this, take care of our people, _myself!”_

Gaia smiled. “And you will. Just like I said - you have to be the one to do it. You can. You have a strength within you. My mother saw it, that’s why she took a chance on a hot-headed Skaikru girl and molded her into a warrior.”

“I don’t feel like a warrior. I feel like an executioner pretending to be a leader.”

“A leader has to give those orders. A leader has to be that. But you are the leader. You can do it. You have your own strength… _Blodreina.”_

_“Blodreina?”_

“Yes. Your new title.” Gaia reached for her belt and grabbed her dagger, cutting a nick in her palm, then in Octavia’s, joining them together in a blood oath. “This will be your new title, and as I said that day of the mutiny, blood will be your armour.”

Gaia smeared her hand across Octavia’s forehead, painting it red with their blood. “Yes. This will work. _Gyon op, Blodreina._ Rise, and claim your power.”

**_FIFTEEN YEARS AGO BY OMPHALOS TIME  
EARTH (TERRA) - POLIS - DAWN_ **

Octavia returned to the work crew and took a place in her cot mere minutes before the others started waking up, slipping back into their anti-radiation suits, attaching oxygen tanks after having struggled the previous day with just the oxygen scrubbers in their suits.

“It is the lack of vegetation.” Dr Marcos said. “There’s still oxygen in the air, left from before the Earth was destroyed because nothing has been using it, but since there’s nothing producing more, until we reforest completely we need to be ready with supplementary oxygen.”

It didn’t bother Octavia, not with her familiarity with an irradiated Earth’s lower oxygen levels, not with her healing ability keeping her oxygen levels steady, not with her familiarity with oxygen deprivation on the Ark. The Skybox had already been on lower oxygen levels for months before they’d been sent to the ground. Life in the bunker hadn’t been much different, when they’d also encountered issues with century-old oxygen scrubbers from time to time.

They had a busy week ahead of them - breaking through to the aquifer using explosives to create the basis for an oasis, and then the reforestation plan would begin to expand from there. After three days on the explosives crew and breaking through, Octavia was reassigned to the new exploration team to seek out further underground water sources in the vicinity, using ground imaging systems that could penetrate a kilometre deep.

Octavia’s crew planted flags on five more sources located within ten kilometres of Polis, and a second crew came through to bore holes to the groundwater, pumping it to the surface. They flooded several square kilometres of land, and then the entire team pitched in to plant the area with their radiation-resistant seedlings and seeds and spores.

Last of all, Octavia watched as Dr Marcos released a fleet of insects - at least, she’d thought they were insects, but they moved with a purpose that regular insects - that she’d ever met, anyway - didn’t always have.

“What are those?” Octavia asked her.

“Robotic insects.” Dr Marcos said, pressing a button on her workbelt, and Octavia watched as one of the insects flew back towards them, landing in Dr Marcos’ outstretched palm, holding it up so that Octavia could examine it.

“Why not use real ones?”

“Because life is only beginning again here. The atmosphere, the plants, the water - they’re not enough to sustain real insects right now, but there are still jobs that insects need to complete to grow the ecosystem. Thus we bring robotic insects to fulfill those tasks. They’re programmed to do what they need to, using solar power, and when they aren’t actively engaged in tasks, they can power down and wait for the next commands.”

“Next commands? You send commands from Omphalos?”

“Not to all of them at once. Some of them are monitors, who receive the instructions and send them onwards to the others at the appropriate intervals.”

“Fascinating. May I?”

Dr Marcos nodded, and held her hand against Octavia’s so that the insect could crawl into her palm instead. Octavia brought it up to eye level so that she could observe it even more closely, and saw the gleam of the metal, the clicking noise of technological parts. She’d seen artificial intelligences, of course, such as ALIE and the Flame, but this was something completely new and different.

And something that began to give her an idea that she would make use of later. 

After a week of work, when they were all filthy and tired, it was time to pack up most of their gear and head back to Omphalos. The gear itself they left in the rotunda of the bunker, a number of the crew members who were less familiar with Octavia’s history giving her the side-eye as they observed the concrete stained with years and years of blood, still there even after a century. Some whispered words from Dr Warner, and they looked away, working to remember Octavia as she was now, not as she had been then, not that _her then_ was someone they’d ever really know or understand.

The group returned to the sphere room through the passageway, with only clothing and backpacks and work belts in tow, and Octavia watched carefully as Dr Marcos pressed a series of symbols on the sphere, counting six in total until a space behind the sphere began to shimmer, and they all stepped through it one by one into the keystone room of Omphalos.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief when she went upstairs and emerged out into the street, feeling the warm city air and seeing the trees beyond, surrounding the city. She felt at home here in a way she hadn’t felt anywhere else in the universe since Lincoln’s death.

But it was all built on lies, she reminded herself. She’d kept a handle on her temper for the past week, working as she needed and not letting the others see, but now she knew and she couldn’t ever un-know.

She needed to tell Diyoza before she exploded. But their home might not be safe, it couldn’t be, not when she knew now they’d been watching her before, what was to stop them from having something that was watching them now?

Well, she could ensure that. She’d been spending her evenings studying technology, and now what had been just a hobby could come in very useful to them all.

Octavia took a quick inventory in her mind of the supplies she had at home, and then stopped by the technology shop to pick up a few last supplies, making her way home with them in tow, the night already growing late.

_“Ani!”_ Hope yelled as Octavia came in the door, diving to hug her legs before Octavia was even fully inside.

“Hey, _Hofi.”_ Octavia said, dropping her bags on the ground so that she could give Hope a hug back.

_“Ani,_ why are you covered in mud and sand?” Hope wrinkled her nose. “And why did you go shopping before taking a shower?”

“I was working on Terra, you know that, _Hofi._ And I didn’t want to have to go outside again.” Octavia said. “Have you been good for mother all week?”

“She’s been a terror.” Diyoza said from the armchair. “And you’ve been requested to give lessons in Trigedasleng at the school, because Hope won’t stop speaking it there.”

_“Hofi,_ what have I told you?” Octavia scolded kindly. “They don’t speak Trig here. That’s our special language from the world we come from.”

“From Terra?”

“That’s right.”

“And all of your people back on Gaia speak Trig?”

“Most of them, yes.”

“Why does it have to be a secret?”

“It doesn’t.” No, now it really does, Octavia thought to herself. “But it is something special for us that other people don’t have. Don’t you want to have something special just between us?”

“Okay.” Hope pouted. “But you promise I’ll get to see people like Niylah and Indra and Gaia and talk to them in Trig one day?”

“Absolutely.” Octavia bopped Hope on the nose and stood up. “But I do need to take a shower and get all of this work off me. Is it too late for dinner?”

“There’s a plate in the fridge for you.” Diyoza said.

“Thanks.”

Octavia went into her room, dropping all of her things, peeling off her clothes and going to her bathroom, washing the week of dirt and grime away. Dressed back in her regular Omphalos clothes, Octavia breathed a sigh of relief. Terra was far away again, for the moment. Now she needed to know if she was safe here in her private space.

She went back into the bathroom, with its steamed over windows and mirrors, and turned the shower back on, radio as well, while she sat on the edge of the tub to quickly build a bug detector and two Faraday cage bags, where she’d be able to put any listening devices that she found. She didn’t want spies. Over the course of the next few days, she intended to turn her entire room into a Faraday cage, so that even if the rest of the home was compromised, there was one safe space for her to talk.

Diyoza looked at her strangely as she walked through the different rooms, scanning for devices with the gadget she’d put together, but she recognized the tech and didn’t say anything, letting Octavia finish her rounds.

The house was clean. For now. Octavia wasn’t sure if it would stay that way, given that now they knew that she knew the truth about the keystone.

She dropped into the chair next to Diyoza. Hope was sitting on the floor not far away, drawing a picture of… what was that? It looked like it was a picture of her, Octavia, slaying a dragon of some kind.

They’d talk about that later. For now, Diyoza was bursting with questions, Octavia could tell.

Diyoza fixed her gaze on her. “What’s with this charade? What happened while you were on Earth?”

“What happened?” Octavia laughed sardonically. “What I learned is that they’ve been _lying_ to me for five years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know what their _keystones_ are?”

“How they travel between worlds. How you traveled between worlds.”

“Yeah. And it is a two-way connection. That they monitor. The portal between worlds doesn’t stay open the entire time, you have to activate it. If you know the code. And they know the code.”

“Of course they do, they built them. What’s your point?”

“They monitor them. They monitor the entire area surrounding the keystones. Carefully. You won’t know the monitoring equipment is there. But it is. I wanted to believe that when they recolonized a world, that just meant that - they sent a team, a cache of embryos, and that was that, no more contact. That over time, knowledge of Omphalos and our origins was lost to time, not that they deliberately obfuscated it. But they do and did. And they choose to leave the worlds alone, even when they could save them. Choose to leave them alone in catastrophe. Chose to leave _me_ when they could have saved us.” Octavia’s fingers dug into the fabric of her chair.

“The keystone was in the bunker.” Diyoza said slowly. A statement, not a question.

“It was.”

“They knew what was happening down there, they know what you went through, and you’re saying that they could have interfered and saved you, but they didn’t?”

“That’s right. We were some sort of experiment that they just watched. An experiment without meaning, without need, just suffering.” Octavia’s voice faded, before coming back with a vengeance. “I’m not going to stand for it.”

“Whatever happened in the past, we’ve got a good life here now. Please don’t ruin that.”

“Oh I won’t.” Octavia said, voice boiling with fury. “I’m not going to ruin anything. But I am going to make them feel it. I’m going to change it. Change everything. This system, of experiments on different worlds while they watch and observe from their comfortable homes here, is going to be _over.”_ She turned to Diyoza, voice frightfully even and full of pain at the same time. “I’m not going to stop their world. I’m going to _break_ it. Break it down piece by piece so that no one ever has to suffer again.”


	4. Chapter 4

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - MORNING_ **

“So that’s where it started.” Octavia said. “At first I was so angry, that despite what I promised Diyoza, I did want to burn this whole world down. So I created that memory sharing device that Hope stole. But after using it, I realized that I wasn’t going to change the world by sharing my pain. That would only add pain to the world, and wouldn’t do anything to take mine away.

“I could only change the world by creating a method by which future pain on that scale could be prevented - that is, giving humanity the truth of our origins, the truth of the many worlds we reside on, the truth that we can help each other prevent such dark times as we’ve experienced. By being able to communicate across worlds, hiding nothing from each other, being _connected_ to each other - we’ve already been able to do so much.

“Ki and Pachamama were both in dire straits when I first arrived on each of them. Ki was torn apart by war. I stopped it. By speaking to the leading generals, by showing them what I could do, they thought me miraculous. I’m not, but it was enough get me in the door, and enough to get them to speak to each other. I convinced them to take my tech. When they did, when they connected with me and with each other - they understood each other, and put down their weapons. They realized that they didn’t need to fear each other and that they could share the resources they’d been fighting over, and that with the technology they learned about by connecting to my network in Omphalos, they’d be able to improve their crops tenfold and never have to worry about survival again. Their entire armies put down their weapons and took my tech. That was their choice. Then the way they changed their society almost overnight - that was the real miracle, not me. That was fourteen years ago, and there hasn’t been another war on Ki since.”

Octavia turned to face Inanna, who had appeared by her side while she talked about her home world. “Inanna was one of those generals. Much like you, Madi, she was chosen from a young age to lead her people. She saw so much war. But now she lives in peace, like we all can. If you want to know what life can be like now after the wars, after having a hundred years of Commanders in your head - she can help you learn that.

“Pachamama was suffering widespread droughts and dust storms. Theirs was a world that was about to collapse, that would have died in less than five of their years, and then Omphalos would have come to revitalize it and populate it again. There I went to those who were suffering the most from the environmental destruction, and by connecting with them, they learned about the tech that we used to begin restoring Earth and they were able to put that to use on their own planet. Fifty years have passed there since, and Pachamama is flourishing again, a beautiful world covered in fresh and new plant life. Millions of lives saved and changed for the better, when Omphalos would have just let them die and then come in and rebuilt after they were gone.”

“Is there any planet you haven’t conquered?” Miller asked.

“I don’t conquer anyone. I give them a choice. There are some planets that haven’t taken to the tech as others have. That is their right. Amalur and Mawu have very few people who have taken it. Their planets are doing all right at the moment, but if the time comes that they need our help, there are those among them who will be able to make it happen, and if more wish to join us at that time, then we will welcome them.”

“I understand now why you wanted to change everything.” Gaia said. “They _knew._ And they did nothing. I spent days, weeks even, with that keystone, hoping, praying - they would have seen it all, heard it all, yet they did nothing to help us. That’s unconscionable cruelty.”

“Are you with me, Gaia?” Octavia asked.

“I am, _Blod_ \- well, _Blodreina_ doesn’t seem appropriate anymore. What do the people call you now? Your people, across the universe?”

“Just Octavia.”

“How can that be? After everything you’ve brought them?”

“I may have created this technology, but for it to work, it needs all of us. I am but one part of it. When you are connected to so many minds, you realize just what a tiny part of the universe you are.”

“But without you their minds wouldn’t be connected at all. They’d be alone, adrift in the universe, suffering, even dead.” Gaia said. “They must pay you the proper respect for relieving their suffering.”

“No, Gaia.” Niylah said softly. “Your instinct as a Flamekeeper is to create a strong leader, as you did for the Commanders, as you did for _Blodreina._ But that time has passed. Once you join us, you’ll understand. Now we are all a part of something. Now we all have our own power and the ability to make our own destinies.”

Octavia nodded. “Thank you. Niylah’s right. I didn’t do this to seek glory or renown. I did this to help humanity.”

“Like Bekka Pramheda.” Madi said. “She didn’t want to be worshiped or to have the Flame be worshiped or anything like that either. That’s not what it was for. But then Sheidheda changed everything.”

“Sheidheda?” Gaia asked. “What do you mean?”

“Before his time, things were different.” Madi said. “The Flame wasn’t like it was now. Everything was different. But Bekka Pramheda was still looking out for us. She protected us from him, even when - even when I let him in.”

“We’ll deal with Sheidheda.” Octavia promised. “We’ll make sure he’s destroyed. He hasn’t made any moves yet, so we’ve got some time. Right now we need to put together a plan to rescue Diyoza from Father William. But to do that, I need to know if you’re with me.”

“You know I am.” Madi said, turning to Gaia. “You said you’re in. So I’m in too and you can’t stop me anymore.”

“Okay, Madi. You can. But make sure you know the kill code so that if anything bad happens, you can get out.”

“I will.”

“I’m not in.” Miller said, standing up from the table. “So if you don’t mind, I’m sick of being locked up in this prison and I’d like to go back to Sanctum.”

“All right.” Octavia said. “I’ll take you back to the Anomaly.”

“I don’t need your help, okay? It’s a giant green vortex. I don’t think it’ll be hard to find.”

“It’s not about finding the Anomaly. It is about making sure you’re safe from Father William and his people.”

“Let me put it a different way. I don’t _want_ your help. Yours, or any of you. I’m out. I’ll find my way on my own. This is _my_ choice. You said you respected choices, right? Or is this going to be eat or die again?”

Octavia sighed, walking over to the stairs, observing the camera feed of the clearing above, and finding it clear, entered the code to open the trapdoor. It opened with a hiss.

“Go.” She said quietly. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Miller. I hope you find peace. I really do.”

Miller stormed up the stairs and disappeared out into the forest without a word.

**_SANCTUM - SKELETON ROOM - MORNING_ **

Bellamy awoke on the floor of the skeleton room, having spent the night keeping watch with Indra, making sure that Hope couldn’t slip away from them. Murphy and Emori had talked him out of breaking the door down and slipped away to spend the night in a proper bed, but Bellamy and Indra weren’t willing to let it go.

And so they waited.

He’d heard muffled voices inside, but since the door wasn’t opening for them despite their hammering on it, Bellamy could only assume that Raven and Jackson somehow agreed with Hope and were also refusing to open the door.

Jackson, he could perhaps understand. He was loyal to Octavia and could be supporting Hope’s crusade. But Raven? Raven was following Jackson and Hope, instead of looking out for her own? That surprised him deeply.

Bellamy couldn’t count the number of times his dreams had been violently interrupted by Hope’s memory, each time dropping into the middle of a dream, waking him up and then as soon as he’d drift back asleep, the memory would return.

_Why does she want me to keep seeing Octavia in pain?_ Bellamy wondered. But he was no closer to the answer, no matter how much he thought on the matter.

He heard a yawn as Indra came to as well, sitting up against the door.

“I’ve had more restful sleep on a battlefield.” Indra grunted in disapproval.

“You were getting memories all night too, huh?”

“I was. But I couldn’t always tell which were the memories that Hope gave me and my own memories of what I’d seen that day.”

“You were watching something that you already witnessed? What’s the point of doing that if you were already there?”

“Presumably so that I would understand Octavia’s perspective of events.”

“And has that changed how you feel about it?”

“I already knew how she felt about it. I already knew I’d failed her that day. Perhaps Hope wants me to consider how I failed her going forward from that day.”

“Maybe you should.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Hope wants you to experience that memory of hers. She must have a reason why.”

“I don’t know why Hope wants me to watch my sister cutting herself over and over again. I don’t. Do you?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then maybe you should share. Maybe if you’d shared earlier, then we wouldn’t be here.”

“I told you back in Polis that your sister needed you.”

“You could have been a bit more specific.”

“I didn’t think I needed to be.”

“Be more specific now.”

Before Indra could say anything, Murphy came in through the outer doors. He was alone.

“Morning, everyone.” Murphy said with a fake cheerful smile. “And how are we on this fine day?”

“Raven, Jackson and Hope are still in there.” Bellamy said.

“Yeah, I got that.” Murphy sat down next to Bellamy. “Indra, go get some breakfast. It’ll do you good. Emori’s waiting by the steps, in case you feel another one of those memories coming on.”

Indra nodded. “Let me know if anything here changes.”

“I will, don’t worry. She’s not going anywhere.” Bellamy said.

Murphy observed Bellamy carefully as Indra left, watching and waiting until she was out of earshot. Bellamy noticed this too.

“You got something to say, Murphy?”

“You sleep well?”

“No, not really, because I kept getting interrupted by the damn memory that Hope gave me. You?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well since the day you went to the Anomaly.”

“Immortality always comes at a price.”

“I did what I thought was right to save us. So it didn’t work out. Like I said yesterday, it wouldn’t be the first time. That’s not what’s keeping me up at night anyway.”

“So what is?”

“What I see when I close my eyes. I see myself standing in a cafeteria full of terrified people. Cubes of some sort of suspicious-looking meat on their plates. _Human_ meat. They don’t want to eat them. I don’t blame them for that. But they have to, or the human race dies. I’m begging them to eat, because I know if they don’t, I have to take their lives. There is a gun in my hand. I know I hate guns. They’ve only ever brought me pain. And that’s all it is going to do here now, but I don’t have a choice if I want to save my people.”

“Why would you be dreaming something like that?”

“They’re not dreams, Bellamy. They’re memories. But they aren’t _my_ memories.”

“What do you mean?”

“Last I checked, I wasn’t the Queen of the Grounders in a doomsday bunker.”

“You’re telling me that you’re dreaming my sister’s memories? And Hope didn’t inject you with anything?”

“She didn’t. She did, however, tell me that Octavia has been experiencing my worst memories as I’ve been experiencing hers. I just thought you should know, all right?”

“Why is my sister sending you her worst memories?”

“It’s complicated and we’re still working it out. But for different reasons than Hope’s done to you. Hope wants you to understand the pain you caused your sister.”

“What pain _I_ caused _her?”_

“Yeah.” Murphy stretched out his legs in front of him. “We’re not that different, she and I. I mean, she’s more selfless, there is that. I wouldn’t have made the personal sacrifices that she has. But we’ve both been judged and exiled on your orders, treated like garbage because we disagreed with you. Why is it that you get to play judge, jury and executioner, anyway, given everything _you’ve_ done? You’ve got a bigger body count than the rest of us combined.”

“I judge myself every day. You know that.”

“Do I? Because it looks a lot like you forgiving yourself and judging others. Except for Clarke, of course. You’ll forgive her everything, because she does the same for you. But Clarke’s not here right now.”

“Do you have a point, Murphy?”

“We’re here because of you. Abby is dead because of you. Madi and Echo almost died because of you. The rest of us also almost died - again, because of you. So go on and keep thinking that I’m the one who betrayed our people, when it was you who was doing it every step of the way.”

“I saved Clarke.”

“Her life is worth more than all of ours. Got it. Never mind that Clarke would die to save Madi, yet you’re willing to risk the kid’s life over and over again.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to consider things from a different perspective.”

As if on cue, the door behind them started turning, leaving Bellamy and Murphy to jump to their feet to avoid being swept across the floor.

Hope stood in the middle of the lab, Jackson and Raven on either side of her, all of their looks inscrutable.

“Raven. You okay?” Bellamy asked.

“I am. Better than okay. Great, even.”

“Can I - I mean, can you - can you come over here?”

“What’s wrong, Bellamy?”

“I want to make sure _she_ hasn’t injected you with anything.”

“She did. I asked her to. I saw what I needed to see, and now it’s gone.” Raven extended her hand, opening her palm to reveal the memory bead within as proof.

“You asked her to put that in you.”

“Yes. I wanted to understand, and because I did, it came out easily. But it won’t do the same thing for you, not until you’re willing to understand.”

“Understand _what?”_

Raven’s expression shifted, as did her entire stance and the way she moved, as she came over to Bellamy, resting a hand on his arm.

“I don’t endorse what Hope did to you, Bell. She stole that device from me, and she is answering for what she’s done. But I need you to trust Raven, and I need you to _see._ That’s the only way that thing will come out of your head now.”

_Bell. She called him Bell. How in the -_

_“O?”_ Bellamy asked, even though it sounded impossible.

“Yes. It’s me. They’ll explain how this is possible after I go. There’s so much I couldn’t tell you in that cave, because I didn’t remember it. But now I do. Hope has already told you a lot of it. Raven and Jackson can tell you the rest. It won’t be long now, but we’re going to be going home. You have to get everyone ready to move. I’ll see you soon.”

“No, O, wait. What is that memory supposed to show me? How am I supposed to _see?”_

“There is no easy way to answer that. Clarke calls you the heart, right? Use it. Use your heart, see with your heart. I love you, big brother.”

Raven’s stance shifted again, and she pulled her hand back.

“Raven?” Bellamy asked.

“Yeah. I’m back.”

“What the hell was that? Was that really my sister talking to me?”

“Yes. Jackson and I, we took her blood. Just like Echo did. Just like Niylah has, like Madi and Gaia are, and thousands of people across the universe have.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What I’ve been trying to tell you.” Hope said, crossing her arms over her chest. _“Ani_ has revolutionized the universe. Once you’ve learned your lessons, then you can be a part of it too.”

“The tech in my sister’s blood connects you all somehow? Is that it?” Bellamy asked.

“Yes.” Jackson said.

“Then give it to me. Let me see her. Let me see Echo.”

“We can’t, Bellamy.” Raven said. “Octavia doesn’t agree with what Hope did, but mixing two types of tech is bad, and until you get that thing out of your head, you can’t take it.”

“Everyone keeps telling me I have to _see_ to be able to do that. How am I supposed to do that when all I keep seeing is pain? Pain that I don’t understand?” Bellamy ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Please.” He turned to Murphy. “You said I need to see things from a different perspective. Octavia said I need to use my heart. How do I do that to - to solve this?”

“Everything that happened to _ani_ isn’t something to be _solved.”_ Hope said, stepping closer to Bellamy, though he backed away. “It is only to be understood. This memory is from sixteen years ago. _Ani_ has overcome those demons of her past. It’s too late for you to save her from them.”

“Then why?” Bellamy asked. “Why did you make me watch that? Why not just tell me?”

“Would you have believed me if I just told you that _ani’s_ past tormented her? That she suffered for years with the demons inside her mind? That my mother had to explain to a four-year old girl that her _ani_ was sick and that she didn’t know if she’d ever get better? That the names that _ani_ would scream over and over again when in the middle of her nightmares were the same names that she held in high regard when waking?”

All eyes were on Bellamy as he shifted around nervously. “Probably not.” He admitted.

“Good.” Hope said. “I can’t take back that I put that in your head. But I will help you see. And when you do, then we can both earn our redemption.”

Before Bellamy could respond, the outer doors crashed open, and Emori and Indra ran into the room, doors crashing shut again behind them.

“Emori? What is it?” Murphy asked, seeing the stressed look on her face.

“Whatever you’re up to here, it’s going to have to wait.” Emori panted, resting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. “It’s Jordan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming next week:
> 
> _**7x05 Do Not Go Gentle** \- As war threatens in Sanctum, Octavia’s team in Omphalos puts together the pieces that are key to solving the mysteries of their past - and their future._
> 
> Be sure to subscribe to the series (OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100) so that you get updates for the whole season and not just the individual episodes!


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